Microsoft's Patent Plans Worry Open-Source Supporters, Jun 08, 2004

Microsoft's new policy for licensing its patents has supporters of open-source software worried that the company will use a broken government system for protecting intellectual property to beat back gains Linux and other competing software have made in the marketplace.

Microsoft, which holds about 4,500 patents covering a broad spectrum of technology affecting desktops, servers, and more, said in December that it would begin licensing patents to meet requests from customers, partners, and regulators.

Microsoft has more than 100 discussions underway for patent licensing, according to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported on the concerns of the open-source community on Friday. The software maker is offering royalty-bearing licenses to any interested party, including makers of open-source products.

A Microsoft spokesman said in a statement released Friday that the company's intellectual-property policy was to encourage the "broader availability and use of technology developed from our nearly $7 billion annual commitment to R&D."

"This policy is well within industry norms set by companies like IBM, AT&T (Bell Labs), and others who have been licensing for nearly 50 years," the statement said.

However, Microsoft's position failed to lessen the anxiety among open-source groups.

"We are very worried," said Eric Raymond, president of the Open Source Initiative, a nonprofit group that certifies open-source licenses. "This is aimed directly at us. It's a classic Microsoft attempt to crush the competition."

With the workstation class of laptops carrying strong margins, the companies hope their Linux-based IBM T42-series laptop on steroids will appeal to the engineering community, Rob Enderle writes.

Open-standards software is gaining momentum in Brazil with the help of the Government, which says it wants to develop domestic technology without having to pay hefty licence fees.

Linux represents a threat and an opportunity for every software and hardware company. Apple is once again at the crossroads. While it will take a couple of years before we know whether the company will make the right choice, one thing is clear: Apple's path is about to become vastly more interesting.

Back in the mid-1990s, Automated Trading Desk, a financial services and stock trading company in Mount Pleasant, S.C., switched to Linux on almost of its servers and desktops and began living happily ever after.

In the new millennium, however, the fairy tale took a bad turn, as support and product quality from ATD's Linux hardware vendor began to wither. As plot twists would have it, the vendor faltered just when ATD needed top-flight reliability and performance more than ever.

To turn that around, ATD went with a new vendor and a new hardware platform, and kept the fairy tale from turning tragic.

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